Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cottage Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
In another bowl, combine the milk, melted butter, and eggs.
Gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing well.
Add lemon flavoring to taste.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Serve warm with cream or sauce.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and bind during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the crumb.
- Milk
- Supplies moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter forms.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the pudding.
The step that matters
Gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing well. Adding liquid gradually and mixing until just combined keeps lumps out of the batter. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the pudding dense and tough.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, butter, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, butter, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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